


Hive Consort

by Starburst98



Category: Original Work
Genre: Child Soldiers, Egg Laying, F/M, Isekai, Non-Human Humanoid Society
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:41:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23036449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starburst98/pseuds/Starburst98
Summary: A man is brought to another world, while there he meets the love of his life and with her help he begins to head down the path to save it.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Kudos: 5





	1. Hello Truck-Kun

**Author's Note:**

> Crossposting from Royalroad, title is the same there. System messages are a little broken here due to not having a box system built in, will try to spruce them up a little, but no promises they will look pretty.
> 
> Please suggest tags you think apply but I missed.

My name is Kadi Janson, 18 years old, about 6'2"(187 cm), 183lbs(83 kg), clean shaven, medium length brown hair, and green eyes.

Today I was having the worst day of my life. My girlfriend Melissa just broke up with me because I refused to have sex with her because we weren't married yet. Even stranger was when I suggested we could just get married and thus make it a non-issue she got even madder. I just don't understand why wanting to swear to be together forever before risking pregnancy could be bad. 

I could only sigh and shake my head in an attempt to clear these thoughts. It didn't work, every attempt just made my thoughts swirl faster, was I in the wrong for wanting to find true love? I decided to go for a walk, maybe some fresh air would help me clear my head, I grabbed my pack and headed off towards the convenience store.

My pack had odds and ends, things like a small roll of fishing line, some duct tape, a swiss army knife, and a book on general crafts. Obviously it may be a bit strange to always be so ready for everything, but after I got lost in the woods for 2 days when I was 12 I became slightly obsessed with being able to care for myself regardless of what situation I found myself in.

While I was walking down the sidewalk lost in thought I didn't notice the crossing signal had switched to don't walk moments before I stepped into the street. A loud honk broke me from my thoughts and I looked over just in time to see a large 18-wheeler heading right at me, the driver had clearly slammed the breaks with a look of terror on his face. The only thing I could think of right before I was smashed into bits was "hello truck-kun".  
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————  
I had apparently been instantly obliterated as I hadn't felt any pain, instead it was like I blinked and was suddenly in a white void rather than where I was before. The void felt pleasant enough to be in, but if this was it for the afterlife it would become incredibly boring very quickly. Slowly a brighter light appeared to approach me, as the light got closer the pleasant feeling of the void increased, and then it spoke.

"Sorry about that, but I needed to get an offworlder to fix the problem on my world. Just a minor blind-spot spell on you and the driver to make you not notice the problem until it was too late." 

"Why go through all that?" I asked back, feeling very relaxed in spite of the being admitting it caused my death.

"It's part of the rules, we gods can't influence the physical realm directly without serious consequencess, even using the spells to arrange that accident was painful, but it was needed."

"So... you needed me for some reason?"

"Yes, my world is in a consant state of war due to ancient hatreds and grudges keeping people from thinking peace is even an option, so wrapped up in what their enemy did 1000 years ago to even try being nice. This is where you come in, you have none of these hates or fears, thus you can be impartial."

"You are god, can't you have a prophet declare to stop fighting?"

"Good question, but no. I had to unlink myself from mortal prayers to protect myself long ago, gods that take prayers are more powerful but their minds are warped by those prayers. This is fine if the world is balanced, prayers for battle answered with prayers for peace. But after the wars started, almost all prayers were about getting the power to slay their enemies, it would have quickly turned me into a berserk maniac. But by not accepting prayers I am also unable to send divine messages or signs, I would need to open myself back up to the prayers first before I can tell anyone anything, and I would go mad before I could send the messsge."

"I see, so what exactly do I need to do?"

"Don't worry, I will place you in a good location to carry out your task and give you a minor boon. After that, with your addition to the world the rules of fate will become loose enough I can tweak things so you will have a fated encounter that can change the world. You should realize what your role is when the time is right."

"Wait, by fated encounter do you mean I will meet the girl of my-"

"Bye!"

And with a faint POP I vanished from the realm of god and appear on a road with a town in the distance.

[Hello, I am the tutorial, I will explain basic concepts of this world.]

[First, please think "status check"]

"Dreams? ... Dammit." I had to just facepalm, while that god seemed nice enough, he also seemed a little defensive about what exactly my mission was going to be. Well, for now let's do this tutorial 'status check.'

[Name: Kadi Jansen Class: none Level: 0]  
[Str: 10 Vit: 10 Dex: 10]  
[Int: 10 Wis: 10 Cha: 10]

[As you can see, your stats are perfectly neutral, this is the effect of god's blessing, people usually have stats below neutral and their class amplifies what they are good at. To gain a class you must go to a class temple, or undergo a special encounter. Your blessing means you will be competent at anything. Please think "options" to continue.]

Huh, seems pretty standard so far, god's minor blessing being to make me perfectly average at everything is the strangest part. I suppose if the tutorial is telling the truth then having 10 or better in more then one stat is rare? Anyway, lets see 'options'.

[OPTIONS]

[Hud: off]

[Party hud: off]

[Alarm: off]

[As you can see, your options are limited to a few visual things, there is no easy mode or similar, there is also no pausing so be sure to stop someplace safe to examine your menus in depth. This is all you NEED to know for now, I may pop up with information as you gain things that would go in those menus.]

Yeah, figured that there wouldn't be much in there, but is that really all I get from the tutorial? Oh well, I should at least get off the road and in town, I've been standing in the middle of the road for like 10 minutes.


	2. Entering the town of Koral

As I started walking towards the town I checked what I had on me, first up was my wallet. Inside was a welcome surprise, my money and cards had been converted into the local equivalent. I now had 20 gold coins, 10 silver coins and 30 copper coins. While my ID was still an ID, it was a different kind, apparently written on vellum or something instead of plastic, but all my other cards had gone missing, probably because there were no alternate versions of them. Also, my wallet had changed from faux leather to real leather, which was just nice.

My backpack needed to wait till I could sit down somewhere to check it, but I could already tell it had changed just from the look of the straps. Finally I checked my clothes, nothing particularly crazy about them, shirt had just been changed from cotton to linen and a more neutral color, and the pants had leather plates stitched over the knees. I stopped my musing on the changes when a guard near the gate called out to me.

"Ho there, traveller!"

"Good day to you too." I replied.

He made a 'come over here' motion with his hand, probably needed to check me before I could enter.

"Need to see your ID and for you submit to a quick examiniation for contraband."

He pulled out some kind of glass sphere, the size of a ping pong ball and held his other hand out for me to put something in. I quickly gave him my new ID and he wove the sphere at me which glowed blue. He gave my card back after a quick glance and put the orb away.

"Everything seems to be in order, never heard of the town you were from before, but I'm not a cartographer. Anyway, welcome to Koral," he said with a flourish towards the town.

"Thank you, can you tell me about that sphere you used? I know it was for checking me somehow but where I'm from the guards had to do checks manually by opening a person's bag." I asked.

"No problem, it was a small Detection orb that is pre-set to scan for certain items and materials, it glows red if those items are within 10 meters of it, the fact it glowed blue means it could not find any." He explained.

Hmm, "Interesting, one last question, which way to the inn?"

"Head up the road, take the third right and it should be on the left after a bit," he said while pointing up the road.

"Thanks again, see you later, maybe." I gave him a smile and with a wave goodbye I started walking down the road once more, and began looking around at the buildings. Most seemed to be made of wood as expected but some looked like they were made of solid stone that was carved into the shape of a house, if I had to guess I would say some kind of stone manipulation magic merged the rock into shape. The biggest stone building I passed was the blacksmith, it had an open front and stone of the forge itself is fused brick.

I turned down the third right and sew what is obviously the inn, the sign had a bed on it. Across the street must be the adventurers guild, it had a sword hitting some kind of creature as its sign, as well as some extremely well armed individuals standing around in front of it talking to eachother. I'll check it out later, needed to get something to eat right now, so I went to the inn first.

Inside it seemed pretty normal, except the light source for the room was a crystal attached to a chain on the ceiling, it glowed bright white and it seemed the tables under it were the most popular. I headed for the counter and waited for someone to come by, seemed it was relatively busy at the moment. After a minute or two of waiting one of the men behind the counter noticed me and came over.

"What are you looking for stranger?" He asked while leaning on the counter.

"For the moment I need some food, and maybe a room for the night."

"It's five coppers for the food and a silver for a private room, and before you ask it is high because most of the people that stay here are those adventurous types that make good money. You can also sleep in the bunk room with everyone else for only ten copper," he said while holding out a hand.

I handed him five coppers and a silver and the man walked into the back room. I really wanted some privacy when I slept at the moment. A minute later the man came back with a bowl of stew and a key.

"You get room twenty-four, that means room four on the second floor. Also, you can sit anywhere while you eat but I suggest being near the crystal, not only does it make a great light but it also has a soothing effect that helps you relax." He pointed towards the crystal.

"Thanks, I'll see if I can." I took the bowl of stew and checked if there were any open seats near the crystal, unfortunantly it appeared those were full up so I instead grabbed one of the corner of the room tables. Nothing happened while sitting there, and I started to wonder how god would get me into a situation that made it clear what I had to do. Nothing had happened today that seemed like an obvious encounter.

I finished my stew and put the empty bowl back on the counter, then headed across the street to the guild. Inside, there were a lot more of those well armed individuals. A few looked over at me when I entered but no one decided to really have any problem with me so they turned back to whatever they were doing. I walked up to the desk and sew there was a woman behind the counter, she looked pretty enough but I don't really feel like it's a 'fated encounter'. God said I'll know it when I see it and this wasn't it, I called her over.

"Hi, I'd like to apply for the guild."

"Of course sir, I just need your basic status information, name, class, and level." She said while taking out a form.

"Name, Kadi Janson. Class, none. Level, zero."

I think I said something absurd as she just stopped writing and gaped at me for a couple seconds.

"How the hell did you get here without being horrifically killed by monsters or those demon ants?!" She exclaimed.

Damn, she's right, why the hell did I think coming here without a class would be good idea? Probably because I just figured god would take care of it and I was too excited to think about it. Ugh, now I need to think of a story that she can't get the guard to disprove because he saw me walking up alone, but he probably thought I was just strong enough to handle being alone. Uhhh....

"Just lucky I guess. I never ran into anything that wanted me dead." I told her.

"Well, getting lucky once is reasonable enough, but I'm writing a note for the guards that you are not to be let out until the next caravan heading for Merriat comes through. You will be protected by the caravan guards and when you get there you can use the class temple and get something. Now I suggest you find a civilian job until that happens." She pointed towards the door.

"Yes ma'am," I gave her a nod.

I turned around and started walking for the door when suddenly there was the loud BONG of some kind of bell. All the adventurers around me suddenly jumped up and listened. There were two more bongs and after a second of nothing the adventurers all rushed out the door. I hurried out as well and looked where they were going, I saw it easily enough. If I took a left insead of right I would have noticed the gaping hole in the wall, it was obviously unfinished rather then destroyed, and coming out of the forest seemed to be a swarm of humanoids with 4 arms and black armor.

I started jogging down the road to get a better look, and once I got close enough I see that they all have very primitive weapons, clubs and sharp sticks instead of anything serious. Then the fighting began between the armored people and the guards and adventurers. Once one of the black armors is slashed and yellow blood comes out I finally figured it out. Those must be the demon ants, a swarm monster smart enough to use basic tools. If they were a little smarter they would probably be a lot more dangerous with real weapons and tactics.

I waited out of range of the battle on the road, it was fairly one sided, the ants may have numbers but they just had no tactics and their weapons didn't do much damage. But as I watched them I noticed something odd, the ants were not going for the chest or head just the limbs. I even noticed one stop their attack mid swing to avoid hitting someone in the skull, that must mean they want something other then to kill everyone, but what?

The battle was over in minutes, looked like ten of the ants were left when they retreated back into the forest. The adventurers started heading back up the road while the guards began dragging the bodies into a pile. I got out of the road and asked the nearest civilian.

"So what's the deal with the ants?"

"Demon Ants, and what do mean?" He grumbled.

"I mean, I'm a traveller and I've never seen demon ants before."

He looks at me incredulously "how the hell have you... nevermind. Okay, so the demon ants have been a thorn in our side for years but only in the last month the attacks have actually gotten dangerous. Is why the mayor hired some earth mages to build the wall." He gestured to the wall, "The Demon Ants can climb smooth stone but they need to drop their weapons and use all six of their limbs at once, so the wall will weaken them and make it easier to keep them under control."

"I didn't mean something that specific, I meant I have never seen them before, ever."

"What do I look like, a monster encyclopedia? Go to the library for that."

"Right, sorry. I'll go now."

Haaaa, well that was something, guess I should explore the town for now, maybe find a place to work as a temp. I headed off down the road and kept an eye out for anything of interest.


	3. A week in Koral

Wandering around a new town was surprisingly fun and informative. Turned out there're weapon and armor stores as well as two different blacksmiths, one of them worked on goods like nails and horseshoes while the other does custom orders for weapons and armor. I asked someone about it and it turned out the goods smith was the apprentice to the gear smith and after working enough metal they unlocked the smith class and now to level up they need to make things to gain xp.

I also found a church and figured I would check it out for a bit, see if what that god said was true, it was. A statue that is supposed to represent him is an armored warrior with a sword raised over head and several heads around his feet, all of them various kinds of demihumans. I asked one of the civilians in the back about him and they asked if I was dropped as a child to not know of Varros god of victory. I told him I was just from a small village that didn't have a church, he thought it was a little odd but bought it.

The tales of Varros can be summed up as 'he helps the humans overcome the demonic powers the other races have'. By demonic powers they just meant everything that makes those races special, like elven agility or dwarf smithing skill. It was basically a collection of propaganda and hate speech designed to make worshippers hate anything non-human with a passion. So it seems he was right, his world is screwed because hate is so deeply rooted in everyone since birth that it is impossible to change anyone from here.

After that I finally found the library but it was getting late, so I had to head back to the inn for the night, got some dinner, veggies and meat, and headed up to my room. Seems individial rooms were pretty good, a fair sized bed and a small personal light crystal that can be controlled by tapping it, like a three way bulb. Now that I was alone and sitting I could see what changed about my bag and the stuff in it.

First off it's made of some kind of soft leather instead of cotton, and the zippers were replaced with buckles, as well as now only having two smaller pockets instead of four. My swiss army knife was broken into 6 separate tools and made bigger. Duct tape is replaced by a small jar of glue, with a warning label saying it can bond anything together FOREVER, which makes a twisted kind of sense. Fishing line was simply replaced with line of some other material and there was less of it. Finally, my book was swapped to something that seemed to be about building up from scratch.

Looking out the window, it seems to be getting late, spent some time flipping through my new book and I can't really think of anything else I can do in the middle of the night.... I'm totally gonna miss the internet for a while.

* * *

Breakfast at the inn was eggs and chicken, it was okay but I liked ketchup with my eggs, just something else I'll need to get used to . I also paid to have the room for the rest of the week before heading out to the library. I hoped it had something more informative about the world and the creatures in it than the church did, but I doubted it. I bet it will be mostly propaganda.

-One walk later.-

... I hated being right about this. The books were in some ways even worse than the church. For instance, the drawing of an elf in the book about elves makes them look even more evil then the head Varros was standing over in the statue, it's ridiculous. I think the one on the demon ants is the worst, people here see them all the time but the drawing has them looking like hulking beasts made entirely of armor and spikes. It also went into detail about various horrible things they do to people like sucking out their brains or ripping someone's heart out and eating it in front of them before they died.

This, of course, clashed entirely with how I saw them fight the other day. They seemed to do everything in their power to avoid killing people. I can only think the city has something they want badly enough to fight for, but they don't actually want to kill anyone to get it, if I knew what that something was, maybe I could begin that mission to stop the fighting. I doubt Koral would stop killing any they see but if I could get them to stop attacking and just defend themselves, it would be a start.

With the library being a bust, and it already being the afternoon, I see if there are any other food places around instead of eating at the inn every time. I find a nice little shop that has tea and bagels, no toppings, but bagels are pretty good plain. I had almost finished my bagel when I once more heard the three bongs meaning a demon ant attack. I stood up, grabbed my bagel, and started walking towards the gap in the wall. It isn't long before I could hear the sounds of fighting and from looking around, no one seemed worried, guess they trust the guards and adventurers will handle it quick enough.

The sounds stopped when I'm about a block away and shortly after that I see the menagerie of fighters heading back towards the guild. Turning down the road towards the hole in the wall I see it had gotten a couple of meters thinner, those earth mages worked fast. I see the guards doing the work of piling the bodies again, I also see the ground around where they are piling is scorched, so I suppose they dispose of them with fire. As I get close enough one of the guards stopped me and asked "what are you doing over here?"

"I was just reading about the demon ants at the library this morning and while having lunch I heard the alarm bell, so I wanted to get a closer look at them after the battle." I answered

"Studying the enemy, huh? Sure, go nuts. Hmm, that one is the most intact," he said while pointing to one of the bodies not in the pile

I wave him off and approached the body. Getting a close look at it I noticed a few things that were hard to make out at a distance. It is only about a meter and a half tall, the mouth is a regular ant mandible but around the eyes is skin instead of exoskeleton. The abdomen is relatively small if you think about the ratio on an earth ant. It also had a very feminine body type in spite of the exoskelton coating them. I suppose it makes sense with all the fighter and worker ants on earth being female, and this world being full of demihumans, the male ants probably only mated and died afterwards.

Even though I know their race is probably like 95% female I still feel kinda awful thinking about a bunch of women dying horribly in a war they don't want to be in. I just can't think of something worth this senseless meatgrinder, I really don't think the ants will ever make it past the people defending, the wall will just make it extra impossible. Only thing I can do is try to figure out what they want and get myself prepared for that caravan to Merriat.

* * *

The next day and I managed to get a small job, but it was still useful. I was a temp assistant to the general goods smith. I mostly just moved things around and wrote down orders. I also finally realized how odd it is that the people here speak and write in english, but I can only chalk it up to ether coincidence or a god copied it from someone else's world. While moving some stuff I asked the guy about his exp for smithing, he explained that doing anything that takes skill gives some, but doing something that matches your class skills gives more. So while adventurers gained a lot of exp from killing things a smith would make a fraction of that for the same kill, but make a lot more for making metal things.

* * *

Day 4 of being in town. The smith was letting me watch him work, I can't touch any of the in progress orders but he says what he is doing and why he is doing it while working. It is actually not quite as helpful as it could be because the metal bends more then it should every time he hits it. When I asked him, he explained it's due to one of the passives of the Smith class, at his current level it has acceleration factor of three. The master smith on the other hand had gotten to a factor of six and his creations are stronger then physically possible for the material being used.

It also turned out the ant attacks are daily and they always try to retreat when they get down to ten left. They also managed to hurt someone today, broke a guards arm because the adventurers were too slow to reinforce since they had to stream out the wall hole in single file. With the speed those earth mages worked at I think the wall will be finished by tomorrow.

* * *

Day 5 in town. I was right, the hole is gone and the top of the wall is level. Due to my dedication with the smith he decided to let my try making a few nails while he does some himself. The first one looked okay but it snapped in the middle instead of bending, I had no idea why that happened, but smith says it was because I hit it too hard. Next one was better but instead bent too easily, because I apparently hit it too lightly. I am pretty sure the rules of smithing are different in this world than the earth.

Surprisingly, there was no ant attack today, so they must of had enough tactical sense that the wall finally made them realize their attacks were useless. I still haven't found anything that looked like an ant artifact. I even checked out the town hall and asked them if they knew why the ants stepped up their attacks and all I got was "it's just what demons do". This hate has gotten extremely annoying, so many of these people become completely irrational when the topic is about any of the other races.

* * *

Day 6 in this damn town. Since there was no attack the other day a couple adventurers went out and captured an ant to parade her around town and just toment her. They just dragged her around on a rope while the civilians threw things at her. This ended with her being brought to front of the town hall and being beheaded. I could at least understand killing someone in self defence, but this level of maliciousness to hunt people down to make their life hell before killing them is something else entirely.

I am glad the caravan arrived today, I signed up as soon as I could, but they are doing goods trading today and wont leave until tomorrow morning. I told the goods smith I woukd be leaving with the caravan tomorrow and he thanked me for my service and gave me a dagger. I was apparently the best assitant he ever had, and if he was high enough level to handle an apprentice he would have taken me. It's really weird, all I did was follow his instructions to the letter. Do a lot of people think they know better when they do jobs? Whatever, I'll be out of here soon enough.

* * *

Day 7, so long suckers. I woke up right on time, grabbed two servings of breakfast for energy on the road and sheathed the dagger in a new leather belt I got for a silver. It's amazing how little happens in podunk backwards thinking towns. All I had to say is so long, hope to never see you again. I got to the caravan and asked where I should be, they questioned me about my status like the guild lady and when they heard I had no class they immediately placed me slightly behind the middle. It was the second most protected spot, the exact middle was the most important and had two kids that are also going to the city for a class on a cart.

After about an hour of waiting we set off down the road, leaving through the same gate I came in from at the start of the week. The road stretched off into the distance, it was rather straight for something made by hand but I guess magic was involved. It was rather peaceful walking with a large group. Around mid afternoon there was a sudden call to halt, one of the cart drivers looked around warrily. I drew my dagger and tried to spot whatever the problem was too. There was massive rustling from the woods on the right side of the path. The adventurers and guards with the caravan rushed into a defensive formation. A swarm of demon ants burst forth from the woods, guess the caravan was carrying what they wanted.


	4. Enter the hive

There were even more of them in this force than in the other attacks, they were probably building up since the attacks stopped, waiting for an opening. The adventurers and guards engaged them easily enough but now their tactics seemed even stranger, there were enough of them that they could just go around the guards and attack the carts directly to get what they wanted. Maybe they didn't know where it was exactly so they wanted to disable everyone first and then look for it. While thinking about that one of the ants on the side lines turned in my direction and charged for me, club raised in the air.

I'm no fighter, I mostly pulled the dagger to feel safer by being armed. I prayed I was right about their motives and shoot both of my arms straight up in a, hopefully, multiversal sign of surrender. She stopped her charge mid swing and stared at me, her antenna twitching rapidly, and looked me over.

"It's okay, I'm not gonna fight you" I said in the calmest tone I could manage.

Her antenna slowed down their twitching and instead her head swiveled to stare at the dagger I was still holding. She jestured towards it with her upper left hand.

"Right, you want me to put the weapon away, okay. I am going to put it in my belt." I tell her while slowly lowering my hand towards the sheath. She doesn't react except to turn her head to keep the dagger center focus.

As soon as I got the dagger all the way in the sheath and moved my hand away from the handle, she dropped her club and grabbed me with all four of her hands at the same time, hoisted me off the ground, and ran back into the woods. Well damn, that either went really well or terribly, I couldn't get out because she had a hand on both of my legs so I couldn't kick and my arms had been pinned to my sides. I swear this better not result in my being eaten, after all this thinking they are not monsters. She suddenly stopped running, spun me around and put me down in front of the largest ant I've seen so far.

"Me Fighter, you?" She said pointing to herself and then at me. Other then size she wasn't really that different except that under her mandible was a human like mouth instead of an ant mouth.

Well. I should play along for now, so I pointed to myself and said "Me Kadi, why take?"

"Me not know, queen say bring men, me bring men. You walk self? No rope." She says while holding up a bundle of vines.

Uhh... "Me walk self."

She nodded her head, said "Wait fight over," and pointed to the ground.

I sat on the spot she pointed to and waited for the battle to finish. I supposed this explained everything, they were avoiding killing people because people were the thing they wanted. But why would the queen want... I slapped myself in the face. I assumed they were a complete race, but no, they aren't almost all female, they must have been one hundred percent female and needed other races to reproduce. Looking over at the one called Fighter I wondered why there was only one of her. A battle force made with sisters of her stature would be a lot more dangerous.

The sounds of battle evntually stopped and a little later two more people were carried in, their clothes were torn and their right hands looked broken, if I had to guess they were forcefully disarmed. Fighter moved over to them so she could talk to them, the ants carrying them turned them around but didn't set them down.

"Me fighter, you?" she said while pointing to both of them.

"Screw you demons!" "Varros will have revenge for this!" And one of them punctuated their declaration by spitting.

"You walk self, no rope?" She seemed confused, I think me being compliant made her think the others would be nice too.

"Oh you would like that, force us to march ourselves to exhaustion just so we can't resist whatever dark ritual you have planned!"

Fighter just frowned, took out the rope, and tied them up so they couldn't move. She then wiggled her antenna at the ones holding them and they wiggled back and placed the tied men in easier to carry positions over their shoulders. She looked over at me and a complicated expression appeared for a moment, before she just motioned for me to follow her. The walk was surprisingly not terrible besides dumb and dumber doing nothing but ranting about evil, demons, god smiting them, you know, the kind of thing fanatics do. We walked until the sun started to set and Fighter seemed to order making camp.

I say seemed because she just wiggled her antenna at some of the battle group and they just stopped walking and started clearing the ground. Now that we stopped I could look around and see how many were here, I counted twelve, eleven raiders and Fighter. When they attacked the city they always ran off when they got down to ten, but since I surrendered one left the battle early to take me to Fighter and the rest backed out when there was ten still at the battle.

The ants worked really fast at making a camp, three of them climbed trees and cut down a few branches with their mandibles and dropped them down. While the six on the ground worked together to build three single person lean-tos. It was kind of a marvel of precision engineering using only wood and, effectively, their teeth. The two screamers were rolled into their own lean-tos and just kind of left there. I wasn't being pressured to go to sleep right now so I sat next to Fighter to ask more about the ants.

"Why sisters not big like Fighter?" I said while gesturing to the others.

"Queen king die, need king make soldiers. Workers no need king."

Wait a second does that mean "Queen need men, make men king?"

She shook her head "Queen get king one time, magic make men king."

So she doesn't want to make a new king, for herself at least. "Princess make king?"

"Me no see princess... egg when leave?" She brought her hand up to her chin in thought, "If princess, princess make king."

So the queen sent out Fighter and continuous waves of workers as reinforcments in order to find a king for the new princess. That thought suddenly made me realize the situation I was in. I just walked off into the woods with some ant people simply because they seemed nice. Interacting with all the hateful racist people in town must have made me jump at the chance to hang out with the first nice person I met. Even the smith that gave me the dagger was an awful person when talking about the other races.

"Thanks talk, me sleep." I told Fighter while heading over to the empty lean-to

"If princess, you king." She said after I started moving.

I guess she thought I was the obvious pick.

* * *

It took a bit to get to sleep, tweedle dee and tweedle dum kept cursing well into the night and now that I was awake it looked like they stayed up all night being paranoid that if they relaxed for a moment they would have their insides sucked out or something. A soft gurgle from my stomach told me that I needed some food and I didn't have anything to eat on me, one of the caravan carts was handling the food. So I looked around for Fighter and realized there were a bunch more worker ants around than when I went to sleep. Seeing me up, one hurried over and gave me a leaf bowl with several fruits in it, it appeared they were the next reinforcement wave.

After doing some morning stretches and eating my fruit bowl I looked for Fighter again. After a little while she came back into the clearing with the corpse of a boar, she must have gone out hunting. I still didn't see her with a weapon, but I noticed the backs of her forearms had blood on them, meaning she bludgened it to death with her arms. When she saw me awake she then wiggled at the workers, they grabbed the other two and we were once again on the march. I hustled a little to get next to Fighter so I can talk to her.

"Hive close?"

"Yes, hive close, eat meat when return," she smiled.

"You hunt no spear?" I asked while pointing to her bloodied arm.

"Arms strong, break club with arms." Her smile turned into more of a smirk, I guess she was proud of that fact.

I wasn't sure what to ask next so we just kept walking in silence. It was almost noon when we came upon the entrance to the hive. There were two guard ants that shared Fighter's build next to it, it looked like the queen was keeping her real fighting force at home to keep her safe. After they wiggled antenna to each other Fighter led me and the ants with the other men somewhere, while the rest of the workers split off down other tunnels as we passed them. We finally get to a chamber that had two more large guard ants. Another round of antenna wiggling happened and we were let in.

"You live here, wait princess adult." she said while pointing into the chamber.

It was fairly decent considering the tech level they had. There were six wooden beds covered in clean dried grass that felt kinda comfy, certainly better than the ground. While looking around I realized I could still see even though I was underground, looking up I saw something odd, it was another ant, she was even smaller than a worker but her abdomen was glowing like a firefly's and she also seemed to be asleep. I turned towards Fighter who was directing the workers to put the two other men on two of the beds.

"Why ant light?" I questioned as I pointed up at the glowing ant.

"Ants in dark not see far, little sister magic light. Price, must sleep, always." She seemed sad that the little sister had to sleep. "Workers feed one time many days."

"Thank you, get meat later?" I asked about the boar she was still carrying.

"Yes, cook meat, eat, then sleep." And then she left, probably to cook the meat.

Well, now I was alone with the two crazy people and a sleeping glow ant. The other men were clearly exhausted from being awake for over a day and in a constant state of paranoid awareness. So I just left them alone for now. Maybe once they finally slept and see that letting their guard down didn't result in death they would be less tense and can be talked to. For now I decided to read some more of my book, maybe switch out to exercise in a bit. Hopefully the ants would let me explore with an escort if I could get them to trust me.


	5. Morning at the hive

Dinner was some more fruit and roasted boar, my roommates had their vine ropes untied at the same time it was brought in. At first they refused to eat any, perhaps they thought it was another trick to kill them even though we were already at their mercy. But after they saw me eat some and not die they ate their portion with gusto, having refused breakfast this morning they were starving. Then as soon as they stopped eating they passed out, I hoped that when they woke up they were more talkative. After I was done with my portion I poked my head out the door to talk to the guards.

"Make light sister not light?" I asked while pointing to the little glowing ant

They didn't respond verbally but one of them nodded, entered the room, looked at the little ant, and wiggled her antenna. In response the little ant dimmed rapidly until she was completely dark. I thanked the guard and as I laid down to sleep I wondered if I could at least make the people I am being forced to bunk with not so fanatical after we woke up.

* * *

I woke up in complete darkness and panicked for a second before I remembered where I was. I stood up and felt my way over to the door and asked the guards to get the light ant to start the light again. Shortly after she lit up, the two other guys woke up and grumbled about it being too early and other morning grievances. Their mutual grumbling seemed to have startled them both fully awake, then they grimaced as the sudden movement agitated their busted hands.

"Good morning you two," I called out while I waved to them.

"What?!" both of them yelled in surprise at the same time "whwhytheheredoingwhay?"

"One at a time! Let's start with names. I'm Kadi, you next," I pointed to the one on the left.

"Francis," he said and looked over to the last one.

"Horace, Now why are you in such a chipper mood after waking up in this god forsaken dungeon?" He asked with a grumble.

"Well, why not? We aren't dead and I doubt we will be unless we do something incredibly stupid," I told them with a smug look.

"How can you be so sure? They could be trying to make us lower our guard to -"

"We were asleep!" I interrupted Francis, "How much lower could our guards possibly get?"

"Ugh, fine, so what do you think they ARE going to do with us, smart guy?" Francis glared at me.

"Well, when I asked them they said they needed a husband for the princess," they both gaped at me in horror, as if I just said something horrible about their mothers.

"And you believed them!? These monsters will say anything to trick you!" Horace yelled, and one of the guards poked her head in to see what the loud noises were about. 

"We no fight, men scared," I told her while pointing towards the other guys, she nods and goes back to her position. "See, I just talked to them and they listened to me. Besides, how are you going to fight your way out of here with a broken hand? Just relax and i'll ask whoever brings the food for something to help." 

"I don't like it, but you are right. Even if I tried to fight right now I wouldn't accomplish anything." Francis admitted with a sigh and his left hand on his forehead. Horace just stayed silent.

We sat there silently waiting a couple minutes for the food, it started to feel kind of awkward so I took out my book to read some more. Perhaps a half hour later Fighter came in with a bowl of fruit in three hands and gave one to each of us. Hmm, I wonder if I could teach them agriculture, if they could gather food on a larger scale than a hive should get bigger and stronger. Something for later, now that Fighter was here I could ask things.

"Fighter, men hand break, help?" I said and pointed to francis' right hand.

"Me see, get worker bring more little sisters." She poked into the hall and communicated something to the workers and came back in. "Other Needs?"

"Yes, bathroom please?" My gut had filled up after that breakfast. 

"Bathroom?" 

"Uhh, relieve self, waste, excrement." I said while pointing at my butt.

After thinking for a second she said, "Ah, me get pots" and left.

"See guys, just some words and they are bringing something to help your hands and some chamber pots," I said proudly.

"Yeah, it was... surprisingly easy," Francis agreed. Horace just glared at me and grumbled but didn't say anything.

Shortly two workers came in each holding a little light ant. They motioned for the guys to hold their wounded hands out towards them. It took a minute but after looking at me and nodding to him Francis held out his hand. The worker placed the little ant's glowing end on the hand which made him flinch from the contact for a second, and then the worker wiggled her antenna at the little ant. Slowly the... I suppose you could say 'quality', of the light changed, turning from pure light into something more profound. The change kept building for several seconds then with one last burst of brightness that forced me to close my eyes the light stopped. 

I opened my eyes again and looked at Francis' hand, the redness had gone down a lot. The little sisters must be able to do a burst of healing light instead of constant mundane light. The little one that did it was breathing harder from exertion but seemed otherwise okay, and was still asleep. The second worker with a light ant approached Horace next, held her up and gestured for him to hold out his hand. He stared for a minute, then he started sweating profusely and his eyes darted back and forth between Francis' hand and the ant.

Suddenly his still working hand shot out, grabbed the small ant from the worker, threw her to the ground and stomped on her before anyone could react. "You wont use your demon magic on me!" He yelled before jumping on the worker that was holding the light ant and started fighting. I'm stunned that someone would be so hateful they refused healing because of who was doing it. Francis jumped into the fray to stop him but his hurt hand meant he couldn't get a good grip and Horace already had the worker in a chokehold. I run to the doorway and almost hit the guard ants who were rushing in.

I pointed to the fight and the guards quickly overpower him and pulled them apart. One of the guards held Horace in a quad grip on his limbs while he thrashed and yelled about demon magic. I helped the wounded worker to her feet and then checked the light ant. She was very much dead, her thorax had been pancaked and there was blood everywhere. Francis seemed okay but I was feeling awful, logically I knew it wasn't my fault, but emotionally I felt like I could have done more, made him non-hostile enough he would have let them help.

Fighter came back holding three large baked mud pots, while I was sitting there on the bed feeling terrible. She looked around and saw Horace being restrained, then she saw the crushed light ant. 

"What happen?" She asked while squatting down.

"Horace, the held man," I pointed to him, "was scared of the light, he killed the little sister then tried to kill the worker," I switched to the worker he attacked.

"Need ask queen what do with man," she said while setting down the pots. She then scooped up the body of the light ant, stood up, and left once again. 

This incident really brought home just how hard it will be to change these people. I'll get successes like with Francis and set backs with people like Horace. Something told me success will be in much shorter supply than set backs for a long time. From looks alone it seemed like Francis was younger, which could be what made him less set in his ways. Several more minutes pass before Fighter came back and behind her was the largest ant yet. She looked to be over two meters tall, her face was even more human looking than the guards', by having a nose, and her body was much more clearly female with the lack of an armored chestplate, replaced with breasts.

She stared intently at Horace for several minutes, while her antenna wiggled madly, next she shifted her head slightly to look at the guard holding him and wiggled something else, then she turned to me, her face cool and unemotional.

"Can you tell me what happened from your perspective?"

"Well, uhh, one of the workers had a light making ant and was going to have her heal his hand. But he, um, freaked out and killed her then attacked the worker, and the guards rushed in and broke up the fight." It was kinda hard to talk to her with her breasts being level with my face.

"Hmm, yes, that would make more sense then what he thought happened. According to his thoughts of the event, my daughter was trying to steal his soul and now we are going to eat his heart." She then seemed to notice my eyes struggling to not stare at her chest and crossed one pair of her arms over it. 

"I'm sorry!" I yelped while looking away.

"Hmm, it's fine, i'm the one without any coverings, and I wont ever get any, not with my hive doomed as it is." She said with a forlorn expression before shaking her head. "Anyway, it is clear to me I can't hold you all here without things like this continuing to happen, what do you want to happen?"

Horace jumped on the question with "Release me, demons!"

"Done, but not now, you will be tied up and dropped off near the human city," she then wiggled at a worker who left the room, probably to get some rope.

Next up, Francis, "I... I want to go home too. You aren't nearly as evil as the stories say, but I have a family to care for."

"Agreed, you will be tied up too, but because you didn't attack anyone while here, you will be untied when you are dropped off and you can untie the other man."

Do or die time, I had to ask myself, what do I want? ... "i'll stay, I have no family here and your people have been the nicest I have met."

The queen finally smiled, "thank you, that means a lot to me."

The worker sent for rope returned with three bundles of it, I guess the queen thought all three of us would want to go. Fighter took the ropes and tied up Horace first, who had stopped struggling from exhaustion. She then moved on to Francis who didn't struggle and was thus given a slightly more comfortable series of knots because of his cooperation. Right before the workers carried them out I stopped the one with Francis.

"Hey man, could you maybe try to convince people to at least not capture ants and force them through a humiliating march to their death? Don't risk yourself being overt so they call you a heretic, and if you can't do it I wont hold it against you." I pleaded with him.

He looked up at me while held over the shoulder of the worker. "Heh, don't worry, I know what I can get away with. But I will try." With that I let the worker ants march off with their human cargo.

I turned around and the queen was still there, smiling at me. "I see you really do care about us, even though you have only been here for less then a day."

"Well, I just have this feeling that getting to know your people better will make the whole world better eventually," I told her with a grin.

"Very well, Fighter will be your escort, and you can care for this little one," she reached up and gently pried the light ant from the ceiling before handing her to me, "she will be your light as Fighter shows you around the hive."

"Thank you for trusting me," I told the queen before I nodded towards Fighter and we left the room to start the tour.


End file.
